Route 2018

Sporting aspects

The route

Running from Saturday August 25th to Sunday September 16th 2018, the Vuelta will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3254,7 kilometres.

6 flat stages and 2 flat with high-altitude finales stages

6 hill stages

5 mountain stages

2 individual time trial stages

Distinctive aspects of the race

40.7 km individual time trial

46 summits

2 rest days

30 VISITS TO MALAGA

The official departure of La Vuelta 2018 will be the Spanish tour’s 30th visit to the capital city of Malaga. The first one took place in 1936, during La Vuelta’s second edition, where it hosted both a finish-line following a departure from Seville, and a departure that headed towards Granada.

BONUSES

The race continues to have the same bonus points system that awards 10, 6 and 4 seconds to the first three riders in each stage, respectively, and 3, 2 and 1 seconds to the first three riders to complete each intermediate sprint.

POINTS

In the Vuelta, not only the general classification is at stake, riders also fight to be first in the points classification, or to become King of the Mountain in each edition. Points are obtained through the following system: 25 points are given to the stage winner, 20 to the rider that takes second place, 16 to the rider that comes third, 14 to 4th place, 12 to 5th place and then from 10 to 1 point between 6th and 15th place, respectively. Intermediate sprints award 4, 2 and 1 points to the first three riders to complete each one.

OFFICIAL START FROM MALAGA, THE CITY OF MUSEUMS

A CENTURY OF ART

The city of Malaga has one of the greatest concentrations of important art centres per capita in the world. The Picasso Museum, the Carmen Thyssen Museum, the Contemporary Art Centre and the Malaga Fine Arts Museum are some of its most notable examples.

For the past 40 years, the Pompidou Centre has been fulfilling the ambitious goal of housing artwork spanning over a century. Its Paris headquarters features a collection of over 100,000 works of art that date from 1905 to the contemporary period. Its Malaga counterpart is a colourful, modern building that stands in stark contrast to the traditional fishing port found just behind it. Since 2015, this innovative project has served as a link between the Paris museum and the Spanish public, as well the multitudes of foreign tourists that visit Malaga each year.

Its halls house almost one hundred works of art, ceded by the vast French collection, that are renewed every two and a half years, and also contain different temporary exhibits. In order to bring people closer to the various artistic movements, Malaga’s Pompidou Centre fills its exhibits with different musical, dance and theatre programs, including shows, cinema series and conferences.

The artists that make up the Pompidou collection cover very different styles, but are all of the highest quality. Painters such as Henri Matisse, Vassily Kandinsky and Robert Delauney are widely represented in the collections and, of course, Malaga’s own Pablo Picasso, without whom it would be difficult to make any sense of 20th century art.

La Vuelta knows Malaga well and has visited it on numerous occasions (29 times, including both departures and finish-lines). The 30th time will no doubt be special as, for the first time, we will do so with the intention of both discovering and showcasing the city through its culture, its art and its museums to the rest of the world. Its people’s passion for sports, its unbeatable climate and its enviable quality of life all make Malaga one of the ten best European cities to live in according to the Eurobarometer. This summer, Malaga will become an artistic and cycling epicentre for thousands of people.